IDTechEx Research finds that in 2018 the OLED industry will be worth $25.5Bn, rising to $30.72Bn in 2019.

OLEDs used in mobile devices dominate the OLED industry, comprising of 88% of the market revenue in 2018. These are predominately supplied by Samsung but recent capacity additions come from BOE Display, CSOT, EDO, Tianman and Visionox, all based in China.

The second largest sector is OLED TVs, supplied by LG, which are 8% of the total market by revenue in 2018, but 27% of the market by display area.

The third largest OLED application in 2018 is wearables, which is 2% by market value and 0.4% by area in 2018. The thinness, flexibility and appearance of the display are desirable in these applications versus LCDs.

Additionally, IDTechEx Research concludes that the OLED market will grow to $58Bn in 2025, with the total area of displays being 27.6 million sq meters that year.

The report also assesses the progress of emerging competitive technologies. For example, the impact of the Rec.2020 digital standard for next generation UHD displays are better satisfied by quantum dot (QD) displays. Emissive QD displays are still in development and IDTechEx Research expect the first QD emissive displays to come to market in 2026, at which point the OLED industry will be more depreciated.

In the race to innovate to differentiate, there is rapid progress from glass based OLED displays to plastic based/flexible displays and ultimately foldable displays. In 2017 25.6% of manufactured OLED displays were plastic based. That rises to 35.3% in 2020 with the first foldable displays coming to market then in volume.

Printed OLED displays are still in development the background, with JOLED having launched the world’s first commercial printed OLED display in late 2017 and others – particularly Chinese panel makers – aggressively pursuing research in this area.

IDTechEx Research has assessed the display industry since 2001. This report gives a detailed, impartial and realistic appraisal of the OLED markets and technologies, leveraging the full expertise of our analysts and the direct interviews with companies in the value chain.